The Slippery Slopes of F a m e

Hoosier and non-Indianan alike— mistakenly believe remembered as through memory’s mist), most have that Hanley’s is the state song and have never heard forgotten Paul Dresser, who summoned up through “Wabash.” While Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky the medium of music a similar place and time of youth­ Home” is sung before the running of the Kentucky ful innocence. It is wishful thinking to hope for a revival Derby, identified as the state song by those gathered of those Dresser songs that became high-water marks there and by others who watch the event on television, in American popular culture during the last decade of the Indianapolis 500 race, which represents and iden­ the nineteenth century and the early years of our tifies Indiana to many outsiders, features the singing present century, but it would be entirely appropriate and of “Indiana,” rather than the state song. reasonable to suggest that “On tire Banks o f the Wabash, Today one only rarely hears “On the Banks of the Far Away,” as the state song, be sung at public gather­ Wabash, Far Away,” composed by the man many con­ ings and other mass events in Indiana. This would be sider to be the only true a fitting celebration of the successor to Foster in the centennial of “Wabash” writing of sentimental and m ight even lead to its home songs. Based on restoration in the ears, musical merits alone, it is memories, and hearts of difficult to know why more Hoosiers and those Foster’s song has endured of many beyond the state. while Dresser’s has largely been forgotten. With their A professor of music at Saint bittersweet memories of M ary’s College, South Bend, the past in words colored Indiana, Clayton W. by the halcyon days of Henderson received a Clio youth, both represent the Grant in support of a book- grand tradition of the sen­ length project on Paul Dresser. timental song. The music of each, relatively simple, F or F ur ther Reading speaks directly to the heart Dowell, Richard W. ‘“On the and possesses that ineffa­ Banks of the Wabash’: A ble magic that makes for Musical Whodunit.” a superior song. Indiana Magazine of History It is also puzzling why (June 1970): 95-109. “Indiana” has supplanted Dreiser, Theodore. The Songs “Wabash” as th e favorite of Paul Dresser. New York: song about Indiana. Boni and Liveright, 1927. Hanley’s song, as it is usu­ ------. Twelve Mm. New York: ally performed, has a jaun- Boni and Liveright, 1919. tiness, a sprightliness that Dreiser, Vera, with Brett gives it a certain appeal to Howard. My Unde Theodore. the ear, but “Wabash” possesses that same buoyant New York: Nash Publishing, 1976. quality when it is sung at a tempo slightly faster than Lingeman, Richard. Theodore Dreiser: At the Gates of the City, is customary today, but one at which it was often sung 1871-1907. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1986. at the turn o f the century. Perhaps without realizing it, some do hear “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” On the Internet as it is imbedded in its shadow twin. Nonetheless, its loss Words to the state song as adopted by the Indiana from collective memory diminishes the musical trea­ General Assembly— sure of yesteryear, this only a hundred years after this' http://www.law.indiana.edu/codes /in/l/l-2-6-l.html part of that treasure was created. While writings of George Ade, Booth Tarkington, Vigo County H istorical Society home page with links and Jam es Whitcomb Riley, Hoosiers all, still help many to Paul Dresser information— people fondly recall a time and place past (albeit http://web.indstate.edu/community/vchs/ 12 TRACES